Detention policy to remain

The government said yesterday it was doing all it could to deal with the problem of illegal immigrants and statements by Labour home affairs spokesman Gavin Gulia were not helping the situation.

Dr Gulia has accused the government of having no contingency plans to deal with an emergency situation involving illegal immigrants.

The government said the problem was an international one and not much could be done to stop the immigrants arriving in Malta. It said the opposition had no plan or policies regarding immigration and it was not proposing any solutions.

It added that irrespective of what people thought and said, Malta would continue its policy of detention because it was in the national interest to do so. The government also said that it had begun accelerating the processing of applications to the extent that before this latest summer wave of entries, there were only 100 immigrants left in custody.

Malta was also working hard on an international level, the government said, and had offered to host the headquarters of the European Border Agency.